30 Children’s Books That Affirm and Empower Black Girls Around the World

As black mothers we know that the world can be unkind to little black girls. That's why it's important for us to affirm them at home so they can shine out in the world. Here are 30 books that affirm and empower black girls.  

True Stories

 

Black Girl Magic-Just Being Fabulously Black and a Girl

 1. Singing For Dr. King A sweet story about two little girls who make their mark in history by participating in the Civil Rights Movement. This story will show young girls that they too can be involved in social movements.

 2. Celia Cruz, Queen of Salsa I love Celia Cruz and I love her story. Young Black girls from all around the world can look to the Queen of Salsa and be inspired to follow their passions despite facing discrimination and injustice.

 3. Little Melba and Her Big Trombone Melba Doretta Liston was a great jazz trombonist, musical arranger, and composer. Most often when women in jazz are presented, it is as singers. This beautifully illustrated picture book shows a talented and creative Black woman and her impact on jazz.

 4. One Plastic Bag: Isatou Ceesay and the Recycling Women of the Gambia I love how one woman created a solution to a problem in her community by turning plastic bags into purses! This story shows girls that they can make an impact on your world in a creative way.

 5. Mama Miti: Wangari Maathai and the Trees of Kenya Women approach Mama Miti with all sorts of problems including hunger within the family, homelessness, and sick animals. Her answer to all of them is plant a tree. A tree can grow food, be used to build a home, and provide herbs that heal.

 6. Raising the Bar Many young girls are inspired by Gabby Douglas. Even if you are not into gymnastics reading her story is empowering especially because she has made recent history.

 7. Drum Dream Girl: How One Girl's Courage Changed Music When Millo Castro Zaldarriaga was a young girl, only men could drum. However she did not let that stop her from pursuing her passion. Set in Cuba, this story shows young girls that anything is possible.

 8. Talkin' About Bessie: The Story of Aviator Elizabeth Coleman Let your daughter be empowered by this narrative about the first African American pilot.

Loving Your Natural Hair

9. I Love My Hair! A beautiful story where a mother tells a child about her history, while embracing her natural hair texture.

10. Hair Like Mine Is One of a Kind A wonderful short poem that teaches children to love their hair, regardless of the texture or length.

 11. Kinky Hair is Queenly Hair Poetic and historical, young girls are empowered by seeing themselves in the true accounts of Black women throughout history.  

12. Bintou's Braids I love this story about a little girl who wants to have long braids, like the older women in her community. She is taught by her elders to love and embrace the hair that she has right now.  

13. Penny and the Magic Puffballs Penny is dealing with peer pressure and the desire to have hair like her classmates. Her mother teaches her to love her own hair by styling it in two “magic puff balls.” Since reading this story, my two little girls have asked repeatedly for magic puff balls.  

14. Keep Climbing, Girls A wonderfully illustrated rendition of Beach E. Richards' 1951 poem of the same name. This story is about a girl who climbs trees, relentlessly, even after being told that girls don’t climb trees. The story encourages girls to climb both physical and metaphorical obstacles.

15. Princess Truly in I Am Truly Upbeat and fun poem about being great, starring a beautiful black girl with two puffs.

16. Beautiful Ballerina The text in this book is minimal, but the images of black girls doing ballet are encouraging and inspiring.

 17. I Got the Rhythm A spunky, upbeat poem with lovely illustrations by Frank Morrison.

18. Queen of the Scene This young lady cannot be stopped. She is everything athletic, everything confident, everything Black Girl Magic.

19. The Rain Stomper I love this story and how it evokes poetic onomatopoeia. It is told through the eyes of a young girl whose parade has been canceled, but she marches anyway. The story

shows how when one person lets their light shine, others will eventually see it and be inspired to shine as well.

 20. The Girls In The Circle Nikki Giovanni celebrates painting nails, having friends, and dressing up in mommy’s clothes. This is a fun poem for black girls to celebrate each other.

21. Grace for President A wonderful story to tell around election time. A girl questions why there haven’t been any woman presidents, and decides to run for president of her class.

22. Firebird Through this poetic narrative Misty Copeland encourages a young girl to follow her dreams and overcome obstacles she can relate to.

23. The Bravest Girls In The World Toshi overcomes her fears and learns to be brave when she is encouraged by a friend.

 24. Dancing in the Wings Based on Debbie Allen’s experience with dance, she tells a story about a girl who is told that she is not the typical dancer, because of her feet.

25.Come On, Rain! It’s hot and raining, but that doesn’t stop this young girl from going out, exploring, and having fun.

26. Lola Loves Stories This series of books about a girl named Lola and her family is really inspiring for preschool-aged girls. Lola creates stories, has adventures, and even teaches her brother to read. 27. Cheerleading Really Is a Sport In this story, Alicia proves to her brother and classmates that cheerleaders work just as hard as athletes in other sports. It is a very short chapter book.

 28. The Cat Food Mystery A simple short reader in which a young black girl solves mysteries about animals.

29. The Lulu Series There are six books in the series starring Lulu and her cousin Melly, rescuing animals and going on adventures.

 30. One Word from Sophia A cute book where a little girl learns about negotiation. It includes plenty of new vocabulary terms to help build fluency in young readers.

Preschool African Studies: Libya

We are continuing our study of Africa with Libya.  I couldn't find a children's picture book that was from Libya so all of our resources are non-fiction.  We began by using a cut and paste worksheet I created for my daughter.  She traced the country name and capital.  Then we used the capital city to find out what the weather was like.  We used a compass rose to find out what region of Africa Libya is in and then she colored in Libya on the map of Africa.  She choose to use yellow to circle the region and color in the country.  We also studied the Mediterranean Sea using and An Illustrated Atlas of Africa. 

 

I love going through this study because I am learning right along with my child.  One thing I had to explain was that our books were outdated and some information has changed.  For example in the Atlas Libya's flag was a solid green, however their current flag is red black and green.  We looked up the history of the flag online.  We then looked though Libya by Terri Willis for pictures of the people of Libya, discussed how their currency looks different from ours, and how the people of Libya dressed.  She commented on the kids wearing scarves like the adults.

To conclude today's lesson, I had my daughter read a short passages about desserts from Readworks answer the review questions and locate the Sahara desert on the map.  

 

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Also if you know of any fictional children's books that are from Libya, please share.    

 

Preschool African Studies: Egypt

Today we began a journey along with and inspired by Joyice of Raising Boys Homeschool and many other homeschool families.  This journey is a geographical study of the continent of Africa. In the following weeks I will share what we are learning, and if you feel inclined, join us in our study! 

Today we focused on Egypt. We read a neat alphabet book called Egypt ABC's that gave an overview of some popular Egyprian cultural icons and geography. We also read a chapter of African Princesses by Joyce Hansen. This chapter focused on Hatshepsut a powerful woman who was one of Egypts pharaohs. Also on our reading list was one page from Africa Is Not A Country, a children's book that profiles a slice of life for children across the continent of Africa.   Lastly, we read The Day of Ahmed's Secret. This story follows a young boy as he goes about his day keeping a secret he shares with his family at the end if the day. There is a part of the story where Ahmed observes a girl using a pulley to obtain something from a balcony. I asked my daughter if she knew what a pulley was, and she replied yes.  She said Sid The Science Kid used a pulley in one episode. PBS Kids for the win!

In addition to reading, I put together a little cut and paste handout that will be repeated for each nation. The handout requires the student to cut out the flag, capital city and a weather icon and paste it to the page. After pasting the capital city to the page, my daughter used the city to search for the weather using a weather app.

Then she choose the weather icon that matched the current weather and pasted it to the page. We then discussed why it was currently night time in Cairo and this continued into a science conversation about how the earth rotates as it circles the sun.  Finally we reviewed cardinal directions and she had to circle the region of Africa in which Egypt is located, then color in Egypt on the map on the bottom of the page.

For extra credit I offered an Egytian proven to trace to practice writing skills.  Day one of our African studies are under wrap :)